$199 powerhouse. Fiio JM21 REVIEW

[@SuperReview]

Since recording, firmware version 1.0.4 came out. I've been testing the battery life, but still lost 15% with 24 hours of idling (wifi enabled), and the one night I used it while sleeping it went from 88% to dead before I woke up.

[@AindriuMacGiollaEoin]

It's like the iPod touch, it's battery life was so short

[@Ducbloke]

This was always the question mark...Mark. How would it do on Battery. Ordered one and will take it through its paces as well

[@pippo-1073]

Jesus, thats a no from me.

[@adilsonnogueira6468]

I do have a JM21 and I do not have this issue….

[@digsmanako]

u might want to check battery usage by app, niagara launcher is known to be a battery hog

[@bax9]

Poor battery life? Rather get the Hiby R4 then for $50 extra where you can actually replace it with the backplate that comes off with screws. Not to mention in one or two years EU laws made it so modular battery replacement is required so JM21 will be very outdated by then for those looking for something long term.

[@gbiv_4120]

Is it as easily replaceable as the ibasso dx180 or 260?

[@AronAddams7]

Does it have a better battery life?

[@lord5619]

Have mine coming next week. My first proper DAP in like 17 years :D thanks for the vid, very informative for what i consider major cons and pros.

[@SuperReview]

What was your last DAP 17 years ago?

[@skengasaurus]

Can you return it? I my experience, FiiO DAP's have glass that chips very easily at corners, case or not, and battery life falls off a cliff in well under the first year

[@AhmadGhaziA]

My best buy for 2024. Its getting better with every update.

[@Patricia.castro84]

Man, great review! I dropped a coment on a M300 review on another channel that I’m looking for buying one, and a guy told me that I should look for the fiio JM21 instead. After your saying on it, I’m pretty much convinced that the Hiby m300 is the one to go for! Thanks!

[@SuperReview]

Any open questions?

[@Patricia.castro84]

@ by using Spotify and tidal, with Wi Fi turned off, can I get a good amount of battery hours? Plus, with the micro SD card, can I expand space for my streaming playlist too, or just the físicas collection? I ask because I never use android system. Thanks for all your insights

[@chairmandrpepper]

Great video, love your channel, hope to see more!

[@alexeiboukirev8357]

FYI M300 does have glass back and aluminum sides. Also, latest firmware added track back action on the play/pause by either double press or long press (I do not remember which one). JM21 looked interesting until battery time. The latter is not technically bad. There have been and still are many players, even premium, that have similar battery life. It's a matter of your player use pattern. For some people 8-10 hours works just fine. I listen to audio books on mine besides music, I need battery life. That is why I still keep my trusty old HiBy R5 Gen 2.

[@penisman456]

my old dx170 has started slowing down and bugging out a ton, this might be in consideration for my next upgrade 🤌 thanks mark, hope to see more dap reviews‼️

[@RuiPret]

Sold mine the next day , it’s a pain to watch the battery draining right in front of your eyes , it’s a shame , it’s a very nice dap but charging it twice in a day it’s not something I want in my life

[@fernantejada6836]

I'm using Poweramp as well, and I have the yaps skin on top of it. It looks real clean and polished.

[@joecool4108]

Great review. Thanx. A shame about the poor battery life. I hope Fiio can improve it with the next firmware updates.

[@redaim25]

I saw that Namco tab on your music library brother. Goated taste

[@SuperReview]

R4 soundtrack is amazing

[@MML66]

‏‪9:34‬‏ ‏‪9:37‬‏ Perhaps because you will be able to listen satisfactorily at a lower volume level due to power, and benefit from all the wires that come with headphones, and not be restricted by the type of connector when purchasing an IEM or headphones Also, 3.5 in DAB is often closer to a dongle in terms of power, while 3.5 in desktop is more powerful, so you will need it as well, or companies do that to get more range.

[@johnrus7661]

I always keep all my devices hooked up all night so it is topped off and ready to go in the morning. But makes a good case for some of these DAC/amps. Less software/OS to drain power and lots of battery capacity from say Xduoo. So you get solid battery performance.

[@GOZES]

I guess it's really hard to beat the king of DAPs our Lord M300 when it comes to battery life. I hope that something else will top it at the price point at someone point because that would mean we could see the same rapid evolution in the DAP space at the M300 price point that we have seen with IEMs in similar price points over the last 2ish years

[@Ducbloke]

Been waiting for this one to start shipping. 700mW for $200 from FiiO is amazing

[@SuperReview]

Yeah it's an impressive spec. I hadn't been keeping up with Fiio DAPs since the M11s, looks like their M23 has 1000mW 😳

[@HARD__UK]

@@SuperReview hiby r4, hiby m300, fiio jm21 or maybe newest shanling m1 plus, which of these players would you choose in terms of sound quality?

[@danm203]

Would be interesting to find out if it can actually do that 700 number. I'm skeptical.

[@dkabracadabra]

have you ever tried to deal with fiio eq ui? i know you are eq guy and ui can be confusing for those who use many peak points. keep an eye after eq that all your points are in place because you can easily overwrite previously entered values. you can use scroller under the graph to select "unused" position to set freq/gain/q. it really pissed me off when i tried to migrate dusk dsp profiles to utws5

[@hokum811]

Very curious as to what your current daily driver is for a DAP? Would love a video of your go-to setup!

[@SuperReview]

Hiby M300 and R5gen2.

[@7in1]

Very detailed review, thank you. I would prefer Hiby too, because of system wide PEQ

[@SuperReview]

It is a pretty killer feature.

[@kirkhamilton775]

If you double click the play pause on the M300, it does previous track. you're welcome :)

[@lcwpg]

looks like still some optimization to be done on jm21 to improve battery life but still i have pre ordered one for around $130 never own a dap before this gonna be my first and well it does have every feature that i think i need at this price point

[@juanblanco7898]

EMI is what I was concerned about. Alas, it's a no go for me. Plenty of that with my Topping G5 I wanted to replace with this little DAP, but at least the noise floor is ultra low on it when there's no interference.

[@AnotherAnonymousMan]

Men I Trust are *SO* good. Fiio are hitting nothing but home runs at the moment. I bought a BTR17 instead of this and I'm more than happy.

[@alexeiboukirev8357]

And, forgot to add, track back button has only one use to me - testing and comparing different earphones. That is where I go back to beginning of the track over and over. I can live without that button.

[@teachonlywhatiseasy]

looks like a good player. not sure how many people have these illegally downloaded flac files sitting on micro sd cards but DAP's like these are nice to see with android 12 or 13. all you need is an iem that is transparent to the source to see if this is better/different than HIby DAP's in this price range. Also itd be nice to see how long this takes to boot and if there is feature for auto shutoff if it can be used as a car dac ( bluetooth receive)

[@famousibarra1]

I hesitated during the holiday sales and now prices shot up. Insta cop when the price comes back down though!

[@SuperReview]

It's $180 on Amazon + AliExpress right now (at least in US).

[@famousibarra1]

​@@SuperReview ya know what I didn't even see that you had provided those links! Time to use my Amazon gift cards I suppose. Thank you

[@themilk3]

Great Review....keep them going. Please review the Shanling M1 Plus if possible. the M1 Plus falls around the same price range and might be a very good option too.

[@theonlyegg]

6:48 the R4 has this exact same problem only i constantly restart the song instead of turning off the screen. Had it since launch, still happens all the time. Infuriating.

[@SuperReview]

🤣

[@dkabracadabra]

i hope fiio will improve peq ui. there's an exercise: try to add all dusk peq profiles and check them:) it's doable but one can easily overwrite previously added values and loose some points.

[@SuperReview]

Yeah generally audio companies are not great with UI design.

[@kittykittygumdrops]

Do you buy new music in hi res? Or mostly streaming?

[@SuperReview]

I get music (FLAC) from Bandcamp, Qobuz, and CDs. I prefer to not have hi-res files, they're too large for no useful purpose.

[@leah9227]

I have a few questions: does it have play store and google services installed? How smooth runs Android? Has any “execution” mode (like music player mode, full android mode, etc)? Does it support selecting manually high or low amplification power? Thanks 🙏

[@hpwrotethis]

Sounds like a lot of problems. M300 better. Maybe I need to buy it again.

[@topfragrances]

M300 would be perfect if it had balanced. I have many high ohm headphones that do actually benefit from balanced. Not from a sound improvement type of thing, but from just efficiency of power delivery. For iems I think m300 is an absolute beast!

[@TomOnEverything]

I have both. M300 is a toy compared to the JM21.

[@liutony4872]

My Iphone SE 2016 is collecting dust, so Ive got the battery replaced. It would be interesting to compare the SE with all those DAP.

[@josecintron85]

Currently (01/13/2025) it is just $179.99 on Amazon US. Metallica on the list for the win!

[@HedgehogDude18]

Noise floor has been something that’s kept me from going back to FiiO. My main IEMs are Campfire Andromeda and Solaris which are very sensitive. I had a FiiO M11 and a Q5 years ago which I could notice a noise floor even with non sensitive IEMs. FiiO definitely seems to opt for more power vs a clean noise floor on their players.

[@HedgehogDude18]

Also, you know what the quietest source I’ve ever heard is that results in zero audible hiss for sensitive IEMs? The Apple dongle of all things 😂

[@heloiamerk]

Oddly enough, with my CA Andros, I'm getting more hiss on the 3.5mm than the 4.4mm on the JM21.

[@SuperReview]

Apple dongle is pretty good noise floor performance. The Hiby M300 does even better, I believe.

[@HedgehogDude18]

@@SuperReview have strongly considered giving the M300 a try as a smaller on a go solution. My current dap is a Shanling M6 Ultra and really like it but it is a little big for jean pockets.

[@hunteer963]

Man i would expect better Standby, it's like the battery is always in use.

[@mikewjt5027]

Hey are u ganna review the tea pro?

[@SuperReview]

No, not planning to.

[@bash3245]

Nice review and bummer that battery life drain during idle state, maybe unrelated question I see you are still using pebble watch may I ask which android app do you use to sync and get alert etc. Thx

[@SuperReview]

I'm on iOS and still have a previously-downloaded version of the app on my phone. On Android, looks like Rebble is hosting the OG app APK. rebble.io/apk/

[@bash3245]

@@SuperReviewmany thanks for your swift reply and android app reference.

[@FabioKasper]

I'm surprised FiiO is still sending stuff your way, even after the FA19 fiasco a few months ago. 😂

[@SuperReview]

They are so close with this one.

[@miscwork-qb7pd]

Look at the battery tech from new phones, up to 6-7000mAh in a sleek form factor. New DAPs coming out need to start matching that

[@SuperReview]

TBH I think a 5,000mAh battery in a DAP could give a week of battery life if they're more focused on efficiency than audiophile memes with the audio architecture.

[@h1a8]

So if I use Apple Music then will the Fiio app equalizer work? I only use Apple Music

[@SuperReview]

Nope.

[@patrick600]

Speaking of repeated the Cure on a list - in my experience the "Album Artist" property in metadata can mess up things.

[@SuperReview]

Yeah, that's a good guess -- usually I'm pretty good about making "Artist" and "Album Artist" read the exact same thing because different players use one or the other.

[@Burn_In_Oled_On_Purpose]

I saw the price for the fiio jm21 at $149.99 and at $179.99 and now $199.99. I wonder what the official price since it keeps showing up online at 3 different price points for the same device with the same exact specs and features.

[@SuperReview]

Yeah, I asked about MSRP and was initially told $150, then $199 (hence the robot voice chiming in in this video). On Ali, I see it for $230 or $180 🤣

[@know_how_games]

I got the r3 ii 2025 because I didn't know this existed, did I make a mistake?

[@hkmrsrg1367]

I've never seen you review a DAC in the maybe 2-3 years that I've watched your videos. Did I miss them or you don't really review DACs?

[@SuperReview]

I've reviewed a few mobile ones but lost interest in them years ago.

[@mayonotes9849]

This DAP looked too good to be true until I hear the battery part, really disappointing in my opinion especially with the drain.

[@unruler]

3 GB of RAM is probable reason for crashes and apps shutting down in background, it's just not enough RAM. I have 4 GB on my tablet and I struggle to keep more than 2 apps running in background. It was ok 5 years ago, now it's outdated.

[@SuperReview]

3 GB should be fine, my Hiby R5 Gen2 has only 2 GB of RAM and I have no such issues.

[@otopeixe]

This or Hiby M300?

[@SuperReview]

29:00

[@AlexBeyer-hq1rx]

LOVE MY M300 and I spent $300 on the EVENGELION R4. Which is BEAUTIFUL, but so chonky. One thing I do not like about the M300 is that most of the stuff that would qualify it as a HIFI player is locked behind their music app. Where the R4 has all of those settings in the drop down, and has a UNIVERSAL EQ where M300 only has a Hybi Music Equalizer. WHICH stinks. Since that's clearly only a SOFTWARE LIMITATION. I don't like when companies artificially gimp their products to strong arm encourage you buy the more expensive one. Also the Special Edition R4 comes with one extra gig of ram and double the internal. Which kind of made it well worth the $50 premium outside of looking beautiful in its purple and green color way.

[@SuperReview]

To be fair, I'm not sure it's just an arbitrary software limitation -- the M300 seems to use pretty standard Android audio architecture, whereas R4 (and Hiby's other players) use more custom setups. Possibly that complicates things.

[@AlexBeyer-hq1rx]

@@SuperReview MAYBE. But internally the only nerfing the M300 has over the R4 is dual DAC chip. Though, realistically, those are 100% software features not hardware CODEC/DRIVER specific features. NOW, the counter argument to that could be, one of "PURITY". Why add features to a lower specced device (only in dedicated dac since again, all the other stats are 100% the same), and tarnish the "quality" the "hiby" name carries?

[@wagando-u6f]

What the best iem for Asmr ? thank

[@mokisan]

Imo r4 still better As an iem user i dont care much about power

[@Eternal-ReTuning]

20:30 the only section that matter to me..

[@Lead_Foot]

Battery drain is disappointing since they actually decided to use a more modern SoC that should be more efficient.

[@SuperReview]

Yeah, I really think the SOCs are not the cause of battery drain on these players, the M300 has a smaller battery, with less efficient SOC, and battery life is much better.

[@JustLearning]

I think the battery life sounds good. Loosing 25% a day is not bad. But then again I do not listen for hour on end. Maybe an hour a day.

[@mayonotes9849]

Imo it is really bad, especially after a year or two where the degradation is much more noticeable. If sitting on idle it shouldn't last more than a few %, instead of whopping 1/4 of your total battery.

[@theonewhostonks]

Heyyy might ask for this on my birthday

[@SuperReview]

Happy birthday.

[@theonewhostonks]

@SuperReview Oh, my apologies for the confusion, my birthday isn't til the end of March😂. I appreciate it nonetheless, however!! Thank you!

[@TheNightquaker]

Based Niagara Launcher user

[@SuperReview]

So good. I didn't realize how expensive it got though!

[@rodrigob2788]

super review you should listen do Hellfire from black midi

[@SuperReview]

How come?

[@HobbyTalk]

Does it brick with firmware update? Jk, sorta…

[@SuperReview]

Hm?

[@hpwrotethis]

Also who is that robot updating certain numbers in the video. Are you getting replaced by AI soon,?

[@SuperReview]

I had the wrong MSRP when I recorded and learned afterward that it's $199, had to bring in Fred.

[@joegarcia6276]

Nicee how do u like it vs the m11s ? When' ru doing the m23 ?

[@akhyarrayhka4048]

dap needs better battery life no matter the price

[@NelsonMichael]

Not including global eq from the get go is such a miss

[@saucyg6371]

Unfortunately, i will be waiting for android 14 devices that way battery life will be increased

[@SuperReview]

I would not bet on Android 14 making an improvement in battery life, I believe Android is not the issue here. The Hiby M300 has a smaller battery, a less efficient processor, and yet double the battery life.

[@MrFarts4evr]

the battery? why even sell something like this? epic fail.

[@thomask1424]

An open SD slot?! Pinch pennies somewhere else.

[@SuperReview]

(1) It's common in more expensive DAPs, (2) I prefer it, easier access.

[@Tssukiii]

I may be alone, but I want my the Cure listed under the T‘s 😭

[@SuperReview]

WATTTTTTT

[@thedar7164]

your good , but you need to get over your hang up about sound..yes we want to know what is sounds like... yes we are aware that sound is extremetly subjective, with that said though - you as a competent reviewer can still weigh in on your thoughts on the sound .. we as your audience know and have accepted the margin of error. Get off your high horse with sound already.

[@SuperReview]

Are you asking me to tell you things I don't believe?

[@pilage98]

You keep saying that 4.4 is useless and all of us weirdos are demanding it. This reason we want balanced (4.4) is because normally there's quite a bit more power than there is from the 3.5 output. We're not all using IEMs and would like a decent amount of power.....

[@SuperReview]

Yeah as someone with zero electrical design experience, I suspect it's possible to give us the same output power on a 3.5mm SE headphone jack, but it will kill the memes. Also, the 3.5mm here drives the most demanding headphones I have. I think we're barking up the wrong tree with 4.4mm and making things less convenient for ourselves in the process.

[@Aygross]

Still a hard sell ehen you can grab a lg phone with better specs for cheaper

[@Tssukiii]

Did exactly that LG V30 is my DAP for Spotify use with android

[@DerrickDavis-b2e]

​@@Tssukiii that's exactly what I have. Root it, put android 10 on it and Viper4Android. Best sound I've come across less than $2000.

[@tamersosman]

Your reviews are always focused on trival things....which results in losing the focus on the core features

[@SuperReview]

Like what?

[@tamersosman]

The case for example.....this is 35 minutes review ....it's better to hit the point I.e how it sounds....I don't care about the case .....am buying for the sound

[@SuperReview]

There is a time code to skip to what you want. Spoiler: It sounds like every other DAP.

[@tamersosman]

@SuperReview with all my respect.... Am so sorry to tell that your reviews are boring.... Please accept my appolgy

[@wahid-lg1kk]

4.4 has much better specs, primarily power output and crosstalk. I don't see how it makes me weird to want that. Anyway, novel technique, insulting your audience.. Does it work well?

[@SuperReview]

Friendly ribbing usually works for me, yes. I believe you are not so fragile to be injured by a joke 🤙

[@wahid-lg1kk]

@SuperReview what I wrote was obviously humour? No? 🤣 I thought it was a good line..

[@G00dH0uR83]

Pls pronounce the manufacturer’s name correctly. Fiio (feeeeooo) has already confirmed multiple times that is how it’s supposed to be pronounced. That is the least a reviewer should do when getting a free product….SMH.

[@SuperReview]

I believe neither of us pronounces it the way they do in China.